The 9 first verses of Homer’s Odyssey. Español: Los 9 primeros versos de la Odisea de Homero. Français : Les 9 premiers vers de L’Odyssée d’Homère. Italiano: I primi 9 versi dell’ Odissea di Omero. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The other day a hotel in Newcastle announced that instead of including a Gideon Bible in their hotel rooms, they were going to include a Kindle pre-loaded with a Bible. The full story’s over here.
And one commenter made probably the most important observation:
I just hope that the hotel is prepared to deal with low batteries, user errors, porn added to a machine and then not deleted, and theft of the Kindles.
Yes, indeed. Not really a worry when it comes to those little red books.
But some other commenter said something a bit off the wall:
**Sigh**
Reading the bible is not nearly as important as understanding it properly.
Ok. Firstly, what’s that **sigh** all about?! And secondly, I don’t really get it. Is it more important to read the Bible or to understand it? (And thirdly, why didn’t you give ‘Bible’ a capital ‘B’?!)
Of course, reading something without understanding it is a bit of a waste of time. I could spend an hour every day reading Homer’s Odyssey in Ancient Greek but without an understanding of the language it wouldn’t really add anything to my life. But I’m not convinced that the other way round is any better; if I were to understand the Odyssey but never read it, I’d be missing out on a historical masterpiece!
I think the same’s true of the Bible. Read the Bible every day and there’s a chance that over time I’m going to understand it more and more, and let’s not forget that it’s the Word of God. And reading Bible commentaries and listening to sermons is all very well and good (and both are a wonderful accompaniment to regular Bible reading), but without actually reading the Bible you might as well listen to anyone saying anything! The whole power of Bible teaching is that it comes from the Bible!
So, commenter number two, I know where you’re coming from but respectfully I think you’re wrong. I’d rather lean not on man’s understanding but on God’s revealed Word.
